


Big Time

by lunchinanelevator



Category: Good Wife (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-15
Updated: 2013-01-13
Packaged: 2017-11-14 07:12:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/512686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunchinanelevator/pseuds/lunchinanelevator
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A bit of Kalinda/Lana backstory.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm still not sure whether or not this plans to turn multi-chapter … I would welcome thoughts and suggestions.

She’s still watching.

The woman is youngish, white, long limbs and heart-shaped face, a little gawky. Her breasts push at the seams of her tailored jacket. She’s been caught staring at least a dozen times since they both sat down, and she hasn’t seemed even a little apologetic when Kalinda has returned the eye contact.

The woman's sitting with Kalinda’s original targets, a small group of men, square-shouldered and clean-cut, newly minted Special Agents just a few months out of Quantico. She could be a girlfriend, an agent herself, someone who just wandered over to the wrong part of the bar; Kalinda really can’t tell. Her gaze is a bit too frankly sexual for someone in the presence of a partner, and particularly a male partner, but different people think differently. She’s always understood that, but these last few months have given her more opportunity to learn it than ever before.

She hesitated across the street for nearly twenty minutes, longing for the privacy that has eluded her for ten years, but ultimately pure pragmatism drove her into the bar. Grateful though she may be, anyone with half a brain could tell that Florrick’s wandering eye will do his political career in, probably sooner rather than later, and she’s not going to be left holding the bag. She needs more support. And oddly enough, her skills as an investigator have already bought her a certain level of respect, leaving her confident that that support will most likely be found the legal and law enforcement sectors—cops, law firms, the Feds. The irony doesn’t escape her, but nor did it stop her from entering.

Heads turned when she walked in. She still hasn’t gotten used to that, but it seems to be part of her new character. Nick always told Leela she was lovely—that was his word, “lovely”—but it had been quite a while since that felt like a valid compliment. Kalinda, now, seems to be more than lovely; she’s magnetic, gorgeous, visible. A row of older men at the bar, all balding, bobbed their heads in her direction, like turtles on a log. If she wanted to be cruel, she could have laughed, but she just took a seat far from the reptiles and ordered tequila, idly biting a slice of lime as she picked the most likely conquests.

It’s been nearly an hour now, and the agents seem more inclined to a casual ogle than trying to get her home. The woman at the end of the bar, however, has taken her ogling far beyond casual. Kalinda wonders who she is, and cocks her head towards her. It’s all the woman needs: she slips a few barstools down until she’s beside Kalinda, her movement clearly attempting sexy and yet, oddly, succeeding.

“Hey,” she says when she’s on the stool beside Kalinda’s, legs akimbo. “You come here often?”

She arches one perfectly sculpted eyebrow. She isn’t smiling—she seems almost to take the question seriously, as if its answer genuinely interests her. As if she doesn’t know it’s a pickup line so common as to be parodic, as if she’s never heard the words before. Kalinda decides to like her.

“It’s my first time.” She lowers her eyes in a mockery of shyness, looks up through her lashes to catch the woman giving a gentle nod of approval. “Woman”—she’s almost a _girl_ , Kalinda thinks.

“Lana,” she says. “What’s your name?”

“Kalinda.” It still tastes crisp in her mouth, fresh. It makes her glad she picked it.

“That’s pretty,” Lana says, her tone somehow both reverent and dismissive. “Did you make it up?”

Her heart jumps. “Did I what?”

Lana shrugs. “For a while I made up a name. Or, I mean, I changed mine up. When I was a teenager. I ran away from home and I needed to feel … memorable. I was Leandra for a couple of years. People would always ask me about it.” Kalinda almost releases an audible sigh of relief. Lana’s not really asking the question. She has to watch this woman, though; she could catch Kalinda without even meaning to.

There’s something exciting about that.

“You with the Feds?” Kalinda says, jerking her head in the direction of the booth teeming with square-shouldered guys, now engaged in a game of darts. It’s a guess, but Lana smiles again.

“Special Agent Delaney,” she says. “Still feels pretty good to say it.”

“I know what you mean.”

“And I got Chicago,” she says. “I was afraid they would stick me in Tennessee or someplace. Or back in Nebraska.”

“Wouldn’t be so bad.”

“It would.” Lana’s voice turns sharp for a second, brokering no discussion, but the tone is gone by the time she asks, “What do you do?”

“Private investigator,” Kalinda says. She doesn’t see what she has to gain by lying, but there’s never any reason to delve too deeply into the truth.

“Really,” says Lana, leaning over, showing Kalinda where her bra cups end. “Do you have your own outfit?”

“I do contract work.” Her sole contract is with the State’s Attorney’s office, but she’ll have to change that soon.

“If you have the investigative skills,” says Lana, “my job is really a pretty sweet deal.” She’s leaning forward. The seduction is so blatant that Kalinda’s a little shocked to realize it’s working.

“I don’t think I’m cut out for government work.” Chicago, she guesses, is so corrupt it hardly counts as government.

“Why not?”

“Well, for one thing, I’d never pass the background check.”

Lana laughs like it’s a joke, and Kalinda offers a quick smile to make it one.

“Hey, you want to get out of here?”

Well, that was certainly quicker than Kalinda expected. From the corner of her eye she looks at the group of young male agents in the booth by the kitchen door, but she’s not getting anything else out of this night; there’s no reason not to have some fun. Her face is still as she says to Lana, “Sure.”

Lana’s eyes glow for a second, but all she says is “All right.” She slips on her coat and belts it. On such a slender woman, the gesture should be graceful, but her hands are clumsy, as if the shape of a coat isn’t quite familiar to her. Kalinda wonders whether the bit about being a runaway was a line. It’s hard to tell with a woman this blunt.

She follows the long legs in their seamed stockings down several blocks and around at least four corners before Lana whips around and kisses Kalinda. For a split second Kalinda has to quell the panic that comes of kissing anyone, particularly a woman, in public, but Nick is hundreds of miles away and he knows that Leela’s dead. No one, so far, can stop Kalinda Sharma.

And it feels good, rough and whole and spreading like whiskey. Lana’s clumsiness can’t mask the magnetism between them: Kalinda’s lips and tongue, breasts and thighs are locked to Lana’s, there’s no use even trying to pull loose. Nor is there any reason she would want to. She digs her fingers into Lana’s ass, firm and tight from six months of Quantico. 

“Whoa,” Lana breathes, pulling back as far as their energy will allow. “Can I get you upstairs first?”

Kalinda presses against her ribs, kisses her deeper, harder. She tastes like freedom. “Depends. How many flights?”

\------

The month sweeps by, taking Lana with it.

That first night Kalinda dominates as soon as they’re inside Lana’s apartment. Everything about her is sharp and quick. She grips Lana’s wrists in her left hand while corkscrewing three fingers of her right hand inside her, staring into Lana’s eyes until they flutter shut with the sheer bliss of it all. In the gray predawn room Kalinda’s tongue loops Lana’s clit while Lana grips Kalinda’s shoulder; Kalinda scrapes her teeth against her, and everything in Lana comes undone, her voice unwinding like a whip through the walls and windows, then falling to the street like scraps of paper, like snow.

The kiss Kalinda gives her afterwards is still hungry, but gentle in a way that somehow leaves Lana only a step away from crying. They sleep touching each other only lightly; Lana herself has never been a cuddler, and holding Kalinda would clearly, at a minimum, make her squirm. Lana wakes up once in the middle of the night. Kalinda doesn’t, at least not as far as Lana knows, though she’s noisy and a little frightening in sleep.

The mornings are tender and polite, both of them readying for work. Not quite all business, but it’s certainly clear Kalinda is not the type for morning sex.

Night after night she shows up, though; it’s a week before they even bother to exchange phone numbers. Lana sizzles when Kalinda touches her, and Kalinda seems insatiable. It should be every woman’s dream, and she knows it is, but it’s also overwhelming. She’s just come back from six completely chaste months at Quantico, barely even a moment to touch herself, and the truth is Lana hasn’t had much sex in her life, and it still scares her a little.

She never says anything, but she sometimes thinks Kalinda can sense it—the way her fingers hesitate at Lana’s entrance, circle tentatively until Lana sighs or shifts downwards or moans, and then tease, slow and steady and sure, until Lana is soaked and so turned on she bites whatever part of Kalinda is nearest. 

Sometimes, afterward, it makes Lana tell Kalinda things, even about Seward, about coming out to her parents, the Greyhound buses to Chicago, the weeks she spent behind the Belmont Dunkin Donuts at sixteen. Kalinda nods, asks a couple of questions, kisses beneath Lana’s ear, drives her fingers into Lana until Lana forgets what she was talking about, until her words fragment into moans again. Kalinda never talks about herself. Lana doesn’t even know where she lives, never mind where she grew up or how she got here.

It doesn’t distract Lana from her work; in fact, it seems to make her better, energizing her investigations, giving her a charisma that causes her superiors to sit up and take a surprising amount of notice. Kalinda’s eyes glimmer with need when she looks at her, and it makes Lana feel powerful, ready to take on not just Kalinda but her own toughest cases, the sexist bastards in her cohort at the Bureau, the first e-mail from her elder brother in seven years, which she has thus far refused to touch. It makes Lana feel experienced, which seems, in turn, to make her a better lover to Kalinda.

“I want to try it,” says Lana one day, shyly, looking at Kalinda sitting sideways, legs thrown over the arm of the wing chair.

“It?”

“I want to be in charge.”

“Can you be?” Kalinda says, her tone something like lazy. But Lana sees the teasing somewhere behind her eyes. She pushes Kalinda’s legs down, straddles her lap, leans her hands on Kalinda’s knees. Her kiss shoves Kalinda’s head against the back of the chair.

“Do you like that?” Lana says hoarsely when she pulls back several minutes later.

Kalinda nods. “Yeah.”

“Do you want more?” Lana’s trying, a little, to sound like Kalinda. She doesn’t at all, she sounds more like herself, but it seems to be working.

“Yeah.”

“Will you do as I say?” Lana unzips Kalinda’s jacket, slides it back, runs a finger down her breast and flicks a rigid nipple.

Kalinda swallows and nods. “Yeah.”

“Okay.” Lana kisses Kalinda again, stands, pulls her up into an embrace. She has no idea what she’s doing. She guides Kalinda to the bed and pushes her down, reaches to kiss her while she herself is still standing. That makes her feel less powerful than she thought it would, so she pushes Kalinda’s shoulders back until she’s lying down, then crouches astride her, kissing her, holding her shoulders down. That feels much better. She strips Kalinda of her blouse, her bra. 

“Don’t move,” she whispers. Kalinda doesn’t. Lana swings her leg back over Kalinda and stands. She fumbles in her windbreaker for her handcuffs.

She doesn’t know what she’s expecting when she holds them up, but Kalinda’s eyes widen and she shakes her head, the movement so miniscule Lana’s not entirely sure she saw it. She leans over Kalinda, puts a hand on her waist, kisses her. Then she rises and puts the handcuffs on the bureau, pulling a scarf from the top drawer as she does so. She holds it up for Kalinda to see.

Kalinda visibly relaxes and even puts her wrists together and holds them out for Lana. Lana straddles Kalinda. Kalinda rolls her hips, just once, as Lana ties her hands to the headboard.

“Wait.” Lana says it firmly, in this same voice that’s not quite hers and not quite anyone else’s. Kalinda obeys and Lana feels like she owns the world. She steps back to admire her handiwork and experiences a jolt to her core, because she has never seen anything so hot in her life, certainly not in her own bedroom. Her hands shake as she slides off Kalinda’s boots, her skirt, her underwear. Kalinda’s smiling a little when Lana looks up. “This isn’t funny,” Lana says.

“Well …” says Kalinda.

“Do you want me?” says Lana, her voice dropping. She steps back, unbuttoning her own blouse.

“Yeah,” Kalinda says.

“Yeah, I know you want me.” Lana is amazed at how easy this is. She leans over Kalinda and kisses her, then lies on her side and slowly, slowly traces her hand down Kalinda’s body. She stops just short of her clit, runs one finger lightly along Kalinda’s wetness. “You laugh at me, you don’t get any of this. Do you understand?”

Kalinda nods.

“Say it.”

“I understand,” Kalinda says. Lana plunges three fingers into Kalinda as soon as she says the word. Kalinda gasps. Lana plays her fingers in slow grinding circles, watching the patterns her movements make on Kalinda’s face, listening to the sounds they evoke. She has never been this turned on in her life.

She curls her tapered fingers forward inside her lover, making Kalinda moan. She swings her body so she’s hovering over Kalinda again, lowers her breast carefully to Kalinda’s lips. Kalinda takes it. Lana’s shocked to find her areoles so sensitive she could almost come right there, but she murmurs her pleasure for a few minutes and then pulls back so she can focus on Kalinda. She considers crawling down, tasting Kalinda, but she wants to watch. She draws her fingers out, waiting just long enough for a disoriented, betrayed expression to pass over Kalinda’s face. Then she twists her clit between wet fingers. Kalinda cries out. Lana keeps it up a few more minutes, pulling and circling, watching while Kalinda thrusts towards Lana’s fingers and strains against her bonds. When she shifts over to her thumb and pushes her fingers into Kalinda once more, Kalinda wails and pulses ferociously around Lana’s fingers. Lana keeps it up, seeing how long Kalinda’s sound will last unbroken. She’s throbbing a little herself. More than a little.

Kalinda’s eyes open again, and she gazes at Lana, mouth open and askew. Lana strokes her side.

“Let me go?” Kalinda says, her voice throatier than usual.

“Why should I?” says Lana, surprised she still wants to play the game.

“Because you want to.”

“Don’t tell me what I want.”

“I guess that’s fair. I only know what I want.” Kalinda’s not smiling at all. “First, I want to see how wet you are.”

“You,” says Lana, “are not in a position to be making any demands.” She runs her fingers over Kalinda’s clit again and Kalinda jumps a little. But she doesn’t sway her gaze from Lana’s, and Lana feels a wave of heat pass over her.

“I want to taste you,” says Kalinda quietly. Suddenly, there is more for her to taste. Lana shifts. “I want to eat you like you have never been eaten. I want to show you what I mean.” Lana’s breathing heavily. Kalinda jiggles her wrists. “Take this off.”

“I don’t think so,” says Lana, still not quite able to believe she’s doing this, that she has Kalinda at her mercy. “I think you can do that just fine from where you are.”

While Kalinda watches, Lana removes the rest of her clothing (true to Kalinda’s words, her undergarments are soaked through). Then she sits astride Kalinda, pressing herself against Kalinda’s stomach for a minute. Kalinda smiles, nods. Lana edges her way up, knees apart. When she’s settled, Kalinda’s tongue flicks out, licking Lana in a way Lana somehow wants to describe as graceful.

Kalinda is as good as her word. It’s maybe twelve seconds before Lana starts to see stars. She holds the bars of the headboard above where Kalinda’s wrists are tied, about to let loose, but, “Wait,” Kalinda says. Lana no longer cares who’s in charge. She tries to slow herself down—she can barely stand it, but it’s worth it, the tip of Kalinda’s tongue outlining with precision (how can anyone in the world have this kind of control over her tongue?) a sensation unlike any she’s ever felt. When Kalinda goes back to sucking her clit, the sensation shoots outwards, all through Lana, and she has to rest her head against the wall as she shakes, the noises she’s making not quite recognizable, not quite hers.

Lana unties the scarf with shaking hands as soon as she can breathe again. Kalinda’s arms fly around her and they kiss and kiss and kiss. Suffused with power and satisfaction, Lana falls asleep with Kalinda’s head against her shoulder, and for the first time—and what will be the only time—since Lana met Kalinda, Kalinda’s dreams do not wake her.

\--------

“What do you dream about?” Lana finally asks a few mornings later, gazing at Kalinda and pushing back a lock of her hair. Pearly light peeks around the curtains, casting itself on their faces.

She tries to say it calmly. Kalinda thrashes at night, whimpers, sweats, has hit Lana on more than one occasion, and seems to remember nothing of it in the morning. No stranger to nightmares or to their origins, Lana’s tried to keep quiet about it, but she can’t any more.

Kalinda gazes at her, looking for something. Then she shrugs. “Don’t remember.”

“It sounded awful,” Lana persists. Normally she wouldn’t push, she never has, but the cries that woke her last night sounded like wounds, raw and infected and frightening. She stroked Kalinda’s back and shoulders until she calmed, but it took more than an hour to will herself to sleep again, and she’s started to feel that the knowledge of Kalinda’s fears is something she’s owed. Not as a girlfriend—Kalinda doesn’t seem the type who would take to that term, and Lana’s still not sure whether she herself is—but at least as a witness, as someone whose days and nights have been changed.

“Sorry,” says Kalinda. It doesn’t sound like a word she uses often. “Wish I knew.” She slides out of bed, and Lana hears the shower a minute later.

Two nights later they fall asleep together again postcoitally, sweaty and entangled. Lana jolts awake at three, startled by what feels like anticipation. The numbers on the digital clock glow, the complete darkness making them fuzzy at the edges. It takes her a second to notice that Kalinda’s gone.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wanted to get another chapter in before I have to include S4 canon while thinking about these two … enjoy!

Outside the restaurant Kalinda turns, faces Lana. “Thanks for dinner.”

“You should really consider it,” Lana says again, but her voice sounds flat.

“No, I’m good,” Kalinda says, her breath visible on the night air. “Sleep well.” She kisses Lana’s cheek, and it’s worse than if she hadn’t touched her. Lana watches her march off towards her SUV, and Kalinda’s hips say she knows Lana’s watching. Lana sighs and waits for the valet, shifting her weight from one leather heel to the other.

The first call came out of the blue ten months ago. Kalinda slipped into conversation as she had slipped out of Lana’s bed, as if it didn’t make a difference. She was now an investigator with Stern, Lockhart, and Gardner, a downtown law firm, and was working a case the Feds had had a hand in, defending a man accused of running a safe house for a ring of heroin dealers. Would Lana be willing to give Kalinda just a few minutes with her files?

Her voice was the same, low and smooth and impossibly seductive, and it still did all the same things to Lana.

She wanted to tell Kalinda her life had changed too. She had bought a house on the North Shore, small, but a luxury unimaginable to her sixteen-year-old self, and the wealth and convention of the suburb made her feel both conspicuous and safe. She’d led two small-scale task forces, significant enough to place her on the more serious political investigations. She’d even had a few girlfriends, though of course she kept that under wraps at the Bureau.

But even hearing Kalinda speak brought that all crashing down, and it’s all Lana can do to keep a poker face during their interactions, even though she knows Kalinda can see right through it.

The valet pulls up with her car, and Lana slides a five into his palm and slides behind the wheel, where her seat has already begun to heat up. This luxury too—automatic seat warmers, buying a car new—makes her feel like at any moment she could wake up from this dream seventeen years old, still in a sleeping bag behind a Dumpster. On Lake Shore she drives a little too fast, turns a little too sharply as she heads up to Lake Forest. She slides into the driveway crooked, and hates herself as she crashes into her house and opens the well-thumbed file at the upper right-hand corner of her desk. 

By now Lana has quite a file on Kalinda Sharma.

It wasn’t her decision, she’ll swear to that if Kalinda ever demands to know. It’s completely defensible, or at least, it was at first. It was just luck that Lana was assigned to the Florrick and Childs investigation, luck that she had been noticed enough to supervise some delicate surveillance but was still junior enough that her focus, per her superiors, was not always on the central figures in the scandals. Finding the name Kalinda Sharma among her assignments was a complete coincidence.

But even the simplest questions— _When did Kalinda start working for Florrick?_ —were labyrinthine, and the twists and turns so intrigued Lana that she continued to research on the side, long after her superiors decided that few of the bit players in the scandal were likely to bear fruit, long after they stopped asking questions.

The research felt like betrayal after betrayal to Lana, at first. It hurt that Kalinda had lied to her even that very first night they met, tainted Lana’s memory of their meeting. It hurt that Kalinda slept with men, that she was just another bi girl who had used Lana and tossed her out, that Lana couldn’t even think herself unique. It hurt that in all likelihood Kalinda had had some kind of dalliances with both Florrick and Childs, that Lana couldn’t count on her judgment or her ethics.

Even her name probably wasn’t real—the records of “Kalinda Sharma” before 2007 were flimsy enough that even Lana, with her limited experience in identity theft and computer crimes, could poke holes in them with relative ease.

It worried Lana, to think she had been so easily taken in. 

And of course, it worried her for Kalinda, too. She had become irrelevant to the investigation pretty quickly—Lana knew that no one but she was really looking at Florrick’s sidekicks anymore—but if even a hint of scandal were to resurface, Kalinda was vulnerable. More vulnerable than she thought Kalinda understood. There are people out there, including more than one who Lana has worked with, who will stop at nothing to get a chokehold on Peter Florrick. It doesn’t matter who’s trampled along the way. And Childs, in his quest to isolate Chicago’s legal system from the rest of the state’s, has made an equal number of enemies. Kalinda Sharma would be the right person to leverage against both of them.

It horrifies Lana to think of taking Kalinda into federal custody, just the sort of task that would be likely to fall to Lana in this case. Every now and then Lana even has dreams about it. She doesn’t think she could stand the way Kalinda would look at her.

Not that she can really stand the way Kalinda looked at her tonight.

Lana slaps the file closed and goes to pour herself a drink. That was the point of this whole night, of course. To offer Kalinda some kind of safe harbor. To be the person who could offer Kalinda a safe harbor.

The deep, dark secret is that Lana is pretty sure she will continue to keep the file, that there are numerous paths her research has not yet taken. What was Kalinda’s name before? Lana wonders, swirling the vodka in her glass. Where did she come from, and why did she want a different name? What does any of that have to do with Florrick?

She downs the rest of the vodka in a single swallow and tosses her shoes off as she goes into her room. She peels her stockings down forcefully enough to rip them. 

The deeper, darker secret is that Lana wouldn’t mind seeing Kalinda in handcuffs. That she thinks about it even now, as she slides between sheets, thinks about anything that could take down Kalinda’s power.

*

“I guess I could just be confused.” Kalinda barely breathes the words along the skin of Lana’s neck, and when she steps forward and Lana leans down all words become unnecessary.

Kalinda had forgotten. She’d forgotten what it was like to kiss Lana, the thousand-volt jolt. Lana reaches around Kalinda to pull the door to the storage unit all the way down; when she stands up, she holds Kalinda’s shoulders as she kisses her, pressing her back against the corrugated metal. She reaches one hand down and fingers the hem of Kalinda’s skirt.

This isn’t a good idea. She knows it while Lana’s fingers rub the tops of her thighs, while Lana slides Kalinda’s panties down over her hips and boots, while Lana sinks to her knees in front of Kalinda.

She knew it weeks ago, when they parted company in the courthouse. Kalinda walked away from the conversation with her heart drumming. It wasn’t that the supposed tapes, the federal prosecution of Florrick and Childs, frightened Kalinda exactly. If it came down to it, it was clear what she’d have to do, who she’d have to support and protect. Alicia Florrick is a friend. Lana Delaney is … confusing. 

But she can’t shake the feeling that Lana knows—Kalinda doesn’t even know what. Knows something. And she can’t have Lana knowing anything. 

But oh, Lana knows how to do this, even better than Kalinda remembered. Kalinda pants, clawing at the ridges of metal at her back, while the flat of Lana’s tongue slides along Kalinda’s clit, while Lana’s thumbs slide along the edge of Kalinda’s moist curls. It’s better than needy, domestic Donna, better than that crooked bastard Tony, better than—holy shit. Kalinda twists a hand into Lana’s hair, but Lana pulls back. Kalinda stares at her, not wanting to give Lana the satisfaction of pushing her head forcefully.

“Tell me you want me,” Lana says quietly. Her tongue flicks out, licking remnants from her lower lip.

Kalinda would, if she had enough breath in her body to do anything but whimper.

“Tell me you want me,” Lana says, soft and sure and steady, a little threatening.

“Yeah.”

“Yeah?”

“I want you.”

Lana nods, reaches her still-wet fingers back out. She rubs along Kalinda slowly, steadily, delicious but nowhere near what Kalinda needs. Kalinda watches her, incredulous, desperate. Lana leans her head towards Kalinda and kisses her mound.

“Tell me you need me,” she murmurs.

“Mmmmm,” Kalinda says, shaking her head and thrusting her hips towards Lana. But Lana just keeps up her sure stroke and tilts her head back to look at Kalinda’s face.

“Kalinda. Tell me you need me.”

This penetrates the fog of Kalinda’s brain just enough for her to realize she won’t say it.

She sighs, hoping that will be enough, knowing it won’t be. She pulls on Lana’s hair, just a little. Lana just strokes smooth and gentle, overlooking Kalinda’s wriggles and thrusts.

Finally she puts her hand back, presses her lips too gently against Kalinda’s clit. Her breath is warm and fine as she says it once more. “Tell me you need me.” Her tongue shoots out just once. Kalinda gasps and doesn’t say anything.

Lana stands up. Kalinda’s eyes open. Lana thrusts her bag over her shoulder and slides the door halfway up Kalinda’s thighs.

“I’ll see you,” Lana says softly in her ear before ducking underneath the rippling metal. She at least has the grace to slide it back down behind her.

Kalinda slides her phone out of her jacket pocket. Her hands are trembling, but she manages to dial Will. It’s a full three minutes before she moves any other part of her body.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want it noted that I started the bit about surveillance way before 4.05. I'm a little bit excited about that …

Kalinda leans back into her SUV, trying to ignore the tense muscles pinching at her spine. There’s part of her that expects a car bomb whenever she enters the garage since her first escapade with the bat. She never checks, but she always pauses for a moment, knowing that this could be the moment.

But Blake is smarter than she is, playing the long game. Kalinda exhales, her hand vibrating as she turns the key in the ignition.

Right now, for instance. This frame-up is only the beginning. Blake has at least a dozen traps set for her, and Kalinda knows she can only see a few of them. And nothing that starts with someone saying “Leela” can lead anywhere good.

It’s been a few weeks since she took a deep breath. As she maneuvers out of the parking garage, winds down State towards the entrance to the Dan Ryan, she struggles to fill her lungs.

For some reason that remains obscure to her, Cary has her back. What happens through the State’s Attorney’s office probably doesn’t have to worry her too much. If Cary took the time to warn her, he’s liable to keep her safe. She doesn’t have to like the protectiveness to make use of it.

But it can only protect her from so much. Cary is a child. He can’t dodge her past and can’t keep her secrets. And Blake is talking to Alicia—to _Alicia_ —and who the hell knows who else. 

Kalinda doesn’t know what doors she left open, where Blake is getting his information, and she knows she’s provoked him more than she should. What she does when she’s cornered. She burns things down. She should have learned by now.

She parks with ease and trips delicately up the stairs to her apartment. It looks dingy to her, for some reason, and she’s sure by now Blake knows where she lives. She slides into an armchair, wondering if maybe she should move. With the new pay increase from Will, she can certainly afford to.

Well. If Blake is going to come at her from this many directions, the only solution is as many solutions as possible. Right now the advantage is clear: Blake knows who she is. She doesn’t have any idea who Blake is. For all she knows, he’s a criminal, careless and unskilled at hiding, and all she needs is the knowledge of it to bring him crashing down. She’s pretty sure she would kill him if she could, if she thought she could get away with it, and the feeling scares her a little. It must be what the name “Leela” awakens in her.

Lana Delaney would know about Blake. And Lana Delaney would check it out for her.

Of course Lana would check it out for her. The idea unfurls its petals in Kalinda’s mind. She hasn’t seen or spoken to Lana in—she’s not sure, maybe a year, and they didn’t part on the best of terms. But the right tone of voice, a carefully opened button, are usually enough to bring Lana back to Kalinda’s side.

The key is control, in which Kalinda has been decidedly lacking when it comes to Blake Calamar. And for that matter, sex with Lana has an odd way of slipping out of Kalinda’s hands, too. Maybe Kalinda shouldn’t sleep with her, just tease her enough to pique her interest.

Kalinda’s phone says it’s six-thirty. She slips her coat back on and marches back down the two flights. She knows Lana’s work habits well enough; she’ll still be at the federal building for at least another hour. Long enough for Kalinda to catch her. There’s no use waiting. Too much is riding on this.

\------

Kalinda’s thighs close around Lana’s foot, and Lana keeps her big toe moving, slow and steady, proud of her own dexterity. Kalinda’s mouth has fallen open, and Lana is transfixed by the darkness of her eyes and the back of her throat. She longs to kiss Kalinda, but it would be terribly awkward from this position, and anyway, she supposes Kalinda has made her position on that clear enough.

_Don’t you want intimacy?_

_No._

A moan escapes Kalinda, and Lana smiles; she’ll have to be satisfied with that, and she almost is.

She watches Kalinda grip the glass edge of the table, watches her efforts not to let anything show on her face. Moisture clings to the toe of Lana’s stocking; she presses a little harder, flicks her toe up and down, and Kalinda releases a quick, sharp gasp, then presses her lips together.

This is a picture Lana wants in her mind, Kalinda straining against the feelings that will clearly overwhelm her soon enough. Her file has filled again with new pictures of Kalinda—Kalinda trotting through Lockhart/Gardner investigations in her high boots, holding conversations with known Bishop associates, with Lemond Bishop himself.

As always, Lana will swear to Kalinda she doesn’t do it on purpose. When the opportunity to investigate the drug trade crossed her desk, Lana jumped on it immediately, relieved to depart from the Florrick intrigue—which didn’t look like it would be moving forward anytime soon—and more relieved to disconnect from Kalinda, who continued to weave an odd, confusing, compelling subplot. Lana has already destroyed more than one relationship this way, the indelible ink of Kalinda smeared over her sexual desire. She needed to move forward.

Kalinda leans forward, the movement slight enough that Lana wouldn’t have seen it if she weren’t looking so closely. Her breasts heave beneath her dress. Lana’s own chest rises and falls as she tries in vain to temper her excitement.

But no sooner had Lana received her assignments for the Bishop investigation than Kalinda appeared again. Just here and there, a few sightings with the man and his associates—clearly because she was linked to his attorneys, but she was nevertheless a person of interest. Lana was compelled once again to track Kalinda, and if a copy of the odd surveillance photo went missing, who could blame Lana for bringing work on an overwhelming, complex investigation home with her?

Or at least, Lana had thought Kalinda peripheral. But the intensity of her questions about this Blake Calamar leave her unsure. As it turned out, Calamar is a notable player, connecting the Bishop organization to the trade in DC. That Kalinda should be aware of these dealings when Lana’s people were not makes Lana wonder, once again, how well she really ever knew Kalinda.

And Kalinda’s in trouble. Lockhart/Gardner will likely go down if it keeps up its dealings with Bishop, and if Kalinda’s linked to Calamar outside of work, as Lana suspects, she’s in a vortex too powerful for her, certainly too powerful for Lana. She made the job offer once more tonight, still hoping against hope that she could protect Kalinda from what’s coming—Lana’s respected enough by now that her recommendations will hold water at the Bureau, possibly even above and beyond the sketchier elements of Kalinda’s background. And really, it would benefit the Bureau, too—Kalinda’s good at this. Even better than Lana thought; Lana still has no idea how Kalinda keeps apprised of her investigations, how her questions always seem precisely timed to Lana’s current work.

But none of it matters. Kalinda doesn’t want Lana’s protection, doesn’t want Lana’s anything. She has made that perfectly clear.

Lana flicks her toe once more, and Kalinda’s back arches and she claws the glass top of the table as her head falls forward and a cry tumbles out of her mouth. She lets out two or three quiet, squeaky gasps, and Lana slides her foot out from beneath Kalinda’s dress. She crosses and bends over Kalinda, kissing her just once, deep and full.

Kalinda looks up at her. Satisfaction has chased everything else from her eyes. She smiles at Lana, lips together, and then rises from the table and takes her coat from the hook by the door. Lana looks back at her. Kalinda slips out the door, and Lana watches it click shut, not wanting to open her mouth to say goodbye.


	4. Chapter 4

Lana’s steps quicken as soon as she leaves the cafeteria, her mind tumbling in confusion. She should have learned by now to back off the cases involving Kalinda altogether. But every goddamn case Lana turns to, there she is again.

Lana pauses by a pillar, leans back, breathes. The webcam confrontation with Alicia Florrick and the subsequent conversation had left her overwhelmed enough. She’d been surprised by the waves of jealousy that battered at her in Alicia Florrick’s presence—affairs with both Florrick and his wife, how brazen could Kalinda get?—and by the way the woman vacillated between fury and unnatural, creepy self-restraint, the latter of which Lana had no choice but to try, unsuccessfully, to mirror. She’d trembled with tension walking out of Lockhart/Gardner, knowing she hadn’t pulled it off, that it would be impossible for anyone to pull it off in front of Alicia Florrick.

And now Kalinda herself. Lana hadn’t seen her in more than a year, and being in close proximity to her Lana could barely focus, barely maintain control. She had been flooded with heat when Kalinda touched her. Kalinda had recognized that, of course; that’s why she’d pushed it the way she did. 

Lana’s annoyed with how well she knows Kalinda, and how little it matters. Worse, though, is that she thinks Kalinda’s right.

Lana can’t see straight when Kalinda’s part of a case, wants to protect her and to punish her and any number of things that have very little to do with federal law enforcement. She’s always been able to keep it under wraps, but after ruining still another relationship with fantasies of Kalinda (“You wish I wasn’t me,” Tish had said, and Lana hadn’t been able to deny it), and seeing the Bishop organization elude their most recent attempt at a sting, Lana’s been too frustrated to be careful.

She fucked this up. And what little she hadn’t fucked up, Kalinda just fucked up for her. Rumors will fly, and Lassiter and the higher-ups will find a way to get rid of her.

Lana feels perilously close to panic. Everything’s a goddamn house of cards, and all it takes is Kalinda Sharma to bring it down.

“Man, Delaney. Who was that?”

Special Agent Sanchez, whom Lana’s worked with on a couple of minor corruption cases, grins. Lana forces the kind of smile that looks casual, that has to look casual. “Potential informant.”

“For Lemond?”

Lana nods.

“Nice.” Sanchez flashes his beautiful, pearly teeth. Every straight woman in the Bureau fawns over that smile, over the thick, straight brows and the light dusting of stubble, conspicuous in a legion of clean-cut men. He leans up against the pillar next to Lana, the fabric of his jacket scrunching slightly against the flat white surface. “She’s pretty cute. You know her from somewhere?”

“Yeah. Few cases here and there. She works for Lockhart/Gardner, you know, Bishop’s lawyers.”

“You guys looked … Did you ever date her?”

“Did we—what? No. No. I didn’t. We didn’t. Why would I—no.” Lana knows how she sounds. Her heart is skipping. She kicks herself mentally; Kalinda has knocked her too far off her balance, and now she’s even more screwed. Sanchez isn’t malicious, but he’s certainly chatty.

“Calm down, Delaney.” Sanchez pats her arm. Lana tries not to jump. Then he studies her. “You didn’t think I knew?”

“Knew what?”

“Oh, come on.” Sanchez rolls his eyes, and Lana tries to ignore the people walking past them. “Everyone knows. Don’t worry about it.”

“Everyone—what?”

“I mean, if you were sleeping with your informant, that might matter,” Sanchez says. “But everyone knows you like the ladies. You don’t have to be all cloak-and-dagger about it.”

Lana doesn’t know what to say.

“You gotta relax.” Sanchez grins again. “In fact, if you’re single, I’ve got a friend you might be interested in meeting. Angie. She’s an AUSA, a few years older than you. Plays basketball. I think you’d like her.”

“Um, maybe.” Lana’s not sure what to say to that, either.

“Really, Delaney. Everyone knows. Nobody minds. Well, obviously, Jordan and Mireles and the other born-agains. But nobody at the top minds. You don’t need to be so tense about it.” Sanchez gives a smaller, more conspiratorial smile. “But if you really didn’t date her—if you don’t end up using her as an informant, I wouldn’t mind an introduction.”

“Not a good idea,” Lana says.

“Well, if she has a sister or something.” Sanchez cocks an eyebrow comically. Lana’s too overwhelmed to laugh. “Just breathe and get back to work, Delaney. See you later.”

He turns down the hall and Lana ducks into the restroom, where she was originally headed, and stares at her pale face in the mirror.

 _Everyone knows_.

Lana remembers Quantico six years ago, the nasty homophobic remarks tossed casually between the men and the few other female trainees struggling to prove themselves one of the guys. She certainly wasn’t imagining it. 

But her own past has been working against her. As she told Kalinda so many years ago, this office isn’t Nebraska. This is a place where people are accustomed to people being gay. Where no one would assume it interfered with your ability to work.

Of course, Lana thinks wryly, they’ve given her a bit too much credit.

But then again, maybe they haven’t. This is the very field placement Lana had been hoping for when she started training, a placement she’s kept much longer than usual due to good networking, due to good work. Lana’s great at her job, when Kalinda Sharma isn’t involved with it.

Lana listens as that thought clicks into place.

Maybe Lana’s had enough of Kalinda distracting her from her own fucking life, from her cases and her career success. Maybe she’s had enough of Kalinda’s manipulations.

Maybe she’s had enough of Kalinda. Lana meets her own eyes in the mirror.

“ _Don’t mix the two_ ,” Kalinda had said, hissing the threat of exposure. But if Sanchez is correct, Lana’s already exposed, and Kalinda has nothing to hold over her. She’ll never come back to Lana, they’ll never have the potent intimacy that’s long fogged Lana’s memory, that’s long kept her from doing her best work.

And Lana doesn’t need her. Not for what she thought. Though she does need her for the plan that’s suddenly blooming up in her mind.

Lana won’t mix the two. Not anymore. Kalinda is part of a case. She’s an ethically questionable Bishop associate with a lot of vulnerability on taxes, connected to Bishop’s legal representatives. She has a rapport, of a sort, with Lana. She can be valuable. She can be used. It’s risky, maybe; Lana will have to get the Bureau to approve, and she herself will probably need a safe house after she speaks to Bishop. But with Kalinda as a bit of leverage, Lana may be able to accomplish something no other task force has yet managed.

A bubble swells in Lana’s chest. That’s all Kalinda is, a tool to make this happen. Just as that’s all she’s ever been to Kalinda. Lana tosses her hair over her shoulders and leaves the bathroom, weaving down the hall to Lassiter’s office with a feeling she can only describe as grace. 

/////

Kalinda trips past the elevator, opting instead to walk down six flights of stairs. She’s glad neither Lana nor anyone else can see her clinging to the banister as she hurries down. The building is twenty-four stories tall and the click of her heels on the steel steps echoes through the cement blocks like a vault. Her quick, ragged breaths are a bit more muted.

It crosses her mind that maybe Bishop’s people followed her here, that she’s led them to Lana. It crosses her mind that right now she has no idea how she would feel about that.

She keeps winding down the stairs and doesn’t stop until the fire exit has deposited her in the alley where she parked, until she’s behind the wheel. She lets her head fall against it—it’s dark, no one is watching—and that’s when she cries, her gasps filling the air in the vehicle. 

She’d learned how to do it, after Nick, after Peter Florrick. Because she needed it. She knows how to keep men and women just close enough and just interested enough, how to be unforgettable (in Kalinda’s experience, she’s gained more as an investigator from being memorable than she ever would by fading into the crowd) without being targeted. She gets people close enough to get what she needs—information, favors, a good look at their faces—and holds them loosely enough that it’s easy to walk away. It’s a dance she learned because she had to learn it, and with a few notable exceptions (Alicia, of course, being primary among them) it’s done nothing but serve her well.

But she screwed this one up.

Kalinda takes a tissue from the glove compartment and wipes delicately beneath her eyes. Who knows where else she might need to go tonight. She sits back, her hands on the wheel, staring straight ahead and seeing if she can feel any movement behind her. But nothing, not even drunk teenagers or homeless men seeking shelter. Chicago is odd that way, a huge and teeming city peppered with pockets of silence.

Right now all Kalinda can think of is Lana years ago, a lovely, clumsy girl opening her arms to offer Kalinda—new to Chicago, new to being Kalinda, new to any kind of trust—a safe harbor. Lana’d had no idea that was what she was doing, of course. She’d only known she wanted Kalinda.

And now Kalinda can still feel Lana pulsing around her fingers, Lana years ago and Lana tonight. The sweet heat of Lana against her, Lana’s back arching and pushing her breast into Kalinda’s hand. Tonight it overwhelmed Kalinda too much for her to do or say anything she had planned. She had wanted to render Lana helpless, but instead she herself had broken, told Lana the truth. And now even that, which Lana has asked Kalinda for so many times in so many ways, meant nothing to her.

Bishop never frightened Kalinda before. He was just Nick a little more refined, a little more removed from the proceedings. And Kalinda had gotten away from Nick. If you didn’t love Bishop, there was nothing to be afraid of (though from a distance, what Bishop did to his wife still frightens her, such a reminder of what could have been). It would be easy with Bishop, Kalinda had thought, to duck out of the line of fire.

That is, if you weren’t being pushed.

Somewhere deep in here Kalinda recognizes a streak of admiration, of mutual recognition. What Lana has done, Kalinda would probably do herself. She has done herself, for a thousand clients a thousand times over. If more carefully. It’s exactly what she’d do if Lana didn’t matter to her.

But Lana does.

Kalinda needs, she thinks, to learn to recognize these things before they destroy her.

Breathing through her nose, she turns the key in the ignition, letting the light flood the alley. Checking again that there’s no one behind her, she pulls out and turns onto Western, into the gleaming streams of traffic.

The Bishop problem—it’s so easy to forget that she has Alicia now, maybe not enough but at least as someone who will fight for her. She’ll stop by her office tomorrow. If anyone can head Lana off at the pass, increase the distance between Kalinda and the Bishop organization, Alicia can. Kalinda forgets, keeps forgetting, that she can trust her again. She merges onto 90, towards home.

As to the Lana problem, she has no idea what she’s going to do.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't know this would be the last chapter when I started, but I don't know that I'll ever find another ending. If you want to get technical, this story maybe never ends …

“Mmmm,” Lana murmurs, her tongue swirling around Kalinda’s nipple. Kalinda sighs, arches up towards her, and doesn’t feel a thing.

Years ago—it seems like another lifetime—Donna Seabrook’s attack had confused her. (She’s thinking of Donna a lot lately, actually. Donna, who couldn’t do this again, because it hurt too much.) Kalinda was sorry to have hurt her, of course, but she had failed to understand why self-preservation _shouldn’t_ be her number one concern. What was there without it?

It had been too long since Nick, that was all, and she’d just forgotten.

“What do you want?” Lana whispers against Kalinda’s ear. Her sweet, pert breasts rub up against Kalinda’s, and Kalinda tries to call up years of remembered electricity, memories of the first, and some of the best, sex she ever had as Kalinda Sharma, to offer Lana in this moment.

“Good,” Kalinda says, trying to smile, trying to encourage. “This is good. You’re good.”

“Kalinda.” Lana rolls her eyes.

“No.” Kalinda takes Lana’s hand firmly, kisses it, guides it down her body. “Go on.”

The first two weeks after Nick’s return are still a blur in Kalinda’s mind. She hadn’t felt like this since Leela was fifteen, a heady, toxic hormonal jumble. _You remember him_ , Kalinda would hiss to herself on her way to the office. _You remember everything he did to you. You remember what he did to—_ (Even then, she wouldn’t finish the thought.) _You set a fucking fire to get away from him._ But coming home, to a bed now messy and rank and full, she would remember that she set the fire to get away from herself, that he was gone already. She could have just gone, another city, another province, and let’s face it, without help he couldn’t have found her. His gifts were his networks, which it must have taken some serious work to rebuild after he got out.

She had set the fire to cleanse, so nothing would be left behind. So she wouldn’t have to be the person who stood by and watched, who did nothing to stop him, nothing to change him. She was burning all of that away. How could she have known she was an idiot?

Lana stares at her, then brushes her fingers lower and lower across Kalinda’s belly. She kisses Kalinda’s navel, scratches lightly along her hips, in a way that once made Kalinda shiver in anticipation. She pretends to do that now. Lana works her way down, kiss by kiss, ducking underneath the sheets.

Distance had changed nothing with Nick, that much was clear. Distance had made her Kalinda, and Kalinda was the best person she had ever been, but six years of Kalinda could all come crashing down under his fingers. She fought it, of course, fought it with everything she had, but she didn’t have enough, on her own, to get him out of her house.

And there had been Diane’s voice in her head, from another time, another universe: “Make it better. I don’t know what’s going on, but make it better.”

“I love how you taste,” Lana murmurs as she licks her. “I’ve always loved how you taste.”

“Mmm,” Kalinda responds, bringing one of Lana’s hands to her lips and nibbling gently along her fingers.

Kalinda aches. It isn’t just the bruises on her wrists or the soreness and strain crackling through her torso, her muscles, her pelvis; it’s the simple exhaustion, how much it takes to convince everyone around her that she’s still Kalinda. (And there’s Alicia’s friendship cracking up through the cement again, a responsibility Kalinda isn’t equal to, should never have asked for.) Not to mention convincing herself.

When Kalinda had called, Lana had sounded surprised but pleased, even grateful. Kalinda supposed they hadn’t parted on the best of terms.

But Lana was who Kalinda needed. The ferocious electricity of her touch. The delicate angles of her body. Her loyalty to Kalinda Sharma. She was the first person who knew Kalinda—the complete Kalinda, not the odd hybrid Peter Florrick had met. She wanted Lana.

She wanted Lana to take her back into Kalinda, completely. She wanted to be engulfed by that heat, the same heat that had taken her so many times when she didn’t want it, didn’t need it. Lana could take her away from Nick, away from Leela.

And Lana’s risen to the occasion. She makes herself beautiful for Kalinda, comes at Kalinda with the same sweet, clumsy, predatory look that always flustered Kalinda, always surprised her with its potency. She’s let Kalinda into her new apartment (there was a little house at some point, Kalinda thinks, but she never saw it), not questioning Kalinda’s refusal to allow Lana into her space. (It’s for her own safety, of course, but Lana takes it as a quirk, as some example of Kalinda being protective, being typical Kalinda.) She’s laid Kalinda down in her luxurious quilts, run tapered, slender fingers along all the curves of her body.

But it hasn’t worked.

Kalinda shifts her legs, sighs a little. For a second she almost felt something. But it’s gone now, and the gentle strokes of Lana’s tongue seem so far away they might as well be happening to someone else.

 

//////

 

“There never was any ‘us.’”

Lana watches Kalinda’s back retreat. Her hips say she doesn’t give a crap whether or not Lana is watching.

“Kalinda, _wait_.”

Kalinda doesn’t, but Lana collects herself enough to rush after her, grab her shoulder near the door to the stairwell.

Kalinda whirls. “Don’t touch me,” she hisses.

“Will you tell me what’s going on?” It’s not a question Lana has ever asked Kalinda before, she realizes. She doesn’t really ask Kalinda questions.

“Stop it, Lana.” The words are painful and familiar. Lana blinks. “How long have you been investigating me?”

“How long have I been—”

For a second the only reaction is overwhelming shame. Old habits, such as the habit of trying to hide the intensity of her feelings from Kalinda, die hard. Now Kalinda sees her for the stalker she is, has always been, and she doesn’t know what to do.

And then reason hits. “You trashed my apartment?”

“Ssssh.” It takes Lana a moment to hear the echo of her own voice in the vaulted hallway, and still another to absorb the peculiar look on Kalinda’s face. “I didn’t, Lana.”

Bullshit, Lana thinks. “Then what are you talking about?”

“You know what I’m talking about.”

They stare at each other, Lana unable to process the multitude of tiny expressions that are flickering across Kalinda’s face. She herself doesn’t know what to do or feel; she should have understood, remembered, that if she used Kalinda, Kalinda would use her back. She wouldn’t have imagined Kalinda would stoop so low, but then again, what would have stopped her?

“There was nothing on Bishop in my apartment.”

“No, just pictures of me,” Kalinda says icily. “Just surveillance.”

“You know the cases I’m involved in. You always have.”

“Am I a target, Lana? Is that why all this started?”

“You started this.”

And then Lana’s furious and confused and she grips Kalinda’s wrists and steers her into the stairwell. “And we are going to finish it,” she continues, pushing Kalinda up against the wall and kissing her.

The confusion of the last few weeks—for that matter, the last few years—sparks between their lips. Lana feels fiercer than she ever has: she wants to bruise, to bite. The depth of it scares her a little, but her tongue has traced the outline of Kalinda’s throat before she even pauses for breath.

Kalinda stares at her, panting, and then twists in Lana’s grip.

“No way,” Lana growls.

“No, over here,” Kalinda says, pulling her towards a dirtier, more shadowy corner, a little pocket behind the heavy steel door. “The cameras don’t catch it.”

Lana doesn’t question how Kalinda knows this, but follows immediately. Kalinda whips around, somehow corkscrewing her hands out of Lana’s grasp and pushing her where the two walls meet. She shoves a thigh between Lana’s—it’s only the boots that make her tall enough for this—and kisses all the spots she seems to have dredged out of memory: behind Lana’s ear, where her neck meets her right shoulder, at the open V of her collared shirt. Lana barely has time to wonder where this sexual energy has been, as for the last several weeks Kalinda’s been passive in bed, murmuring phoned-in platitudes; all she knows is Kalinda’s not going to be in charge, not this time. She closes her thighs so hard around Kalinda’s that Kalinda is thrown off-balance, and Lana uses the moment to throw her weight. Kalinda gasps as her back hits the wall; Lana would check to see if she’s all right, but she’s not feeling particularly tender, and Kalinda is already reaching to kiss her throat. Lana feels a surprising amount of her strength training coming into play as she leans into Kalinda, pinning her shoulders, and wriggles under Kalinda’s skirt with her other hand.

Kalinda cries out, her body suddenly straining for more, her eyes reflecting furious confusion.

“Sssshhh,” Lana says, surprised, pleased the tables have turned. She covers Kalinda’s mouth with her left hand, pressing Kalinda’s head back. Kalinda licks her palm. Lana ignores it. Her other hand pumps furiously, and in between she grinds the heel of her hand against Kalinda’s clit.

It’s a horribly awkward angle, but Lana’s fingers are furiously wet, and when Kalinda comes, she actually screams. Lana’s palm barely muffles it.

“Shut _up_ ,” Lana murmurs, though she’s pleased. Disappointed in the past month, in her idiotic pining for Kalinda, but she’s pleased to see Kalinda melt against the wall, her eyes wider than wide.

“Lana …” Kalinda says quietly.

Lana flushes, even the sound of Kalinda’s voice enough to make her hot at this point. “Yeah?”

“Thank you.”

Lana laughs a little. “No problem.” This is odd, from Kalinda, and new, but she notes a sincerity in her eyes that she hasn’t seen before. It confuses Lana, but if anything, it makes Kalinda more attractive.

“It wasn’t—I didn’t. Your apartment. I didn’t. Please believe me.”

“I don’t care,” Lana says softly, and saying it makes it true. Lana remembers a few blissful moments months ago, when she thought she was free of Kalinda, but she understands now that’s impossible: Kalinda will always appear, and always Lana will be confused. And always this will happen between them, a charge too powerful to ignore, too tremendous to dismiss.

“I do care,” Kalinda says, her voice still soft, but taking on a certain familiar silkiness. She seems to have recovered some of her energy, and she’s standing upright. She takes a couple of steps towards Lana, undoes two of her buttons and puts one strong hand around her breast, walking Lana backwards towards the wall as she does so. “Let me show you.” She twists Lana’s nipple vigorously, puts her lips against Lana’s throat.

Lana sighs. Probably, she considers, there are worse fates.


End file.
